And I feel like that's something that's lost in pop music."īeyoncé was instrumental in upending the well-worn ways a pop project was released at that time. ![]() I just want this to come out when it's ready - and from me, to my fans.' I wanted to make this body of work. I felt like, 'I don't want anybody to give the message when my record is coming out. There's so much that gets between the music and the artist and the fans. ![]() "They don't really invest in a whole album. "Now, people only listen to a few seconds of the song on their iPods," she observed back then. In a video about the making of Beyoncé - naturally enough, released by the singer herself - she talked about that split. Forget about having to skip less appealing tracks - you didn't have to bother with them at all, and you certainly didn't have to pay for the ones you didn't like. Singles again ruled the day, both artistically and economically: Fans could just download a single song for 99 cents apiece, or just stream it as part of a monthly subscription service. By the time of the downloading and then streaming revolutions, however, pop as a genre was cycling back toward a 1950s and early '60s model. By the 1970s, the music industry had largely taught consumers to experience recorded music by buying and listening to entire albums. Holy Grail as a free download for Samsung Galaxy users, a few days before it was otherwise available.īut pop music in 2013 operated on very different principles. In July 2013, her husband, Jay-Z, had released his album Magna Carta. There was even an example in Beyoncé' s own household from just a few months earlier. Earlier in 2013, both David Bowie and My Bloody Valentine had also sprung surprise releases on their fans. The band announced that fans could pay whatever they wanted, up to £99.99, to download the album. In 2007, for example, Radiohead had broadened record industry norms - and shocked many in the business - with the release of its album In Rainbows. In one stroke, Beyoncé proved that she didn't need any of the industry apparatus - not marketing, not promotion, not radio, not magazine interviews, not any of it - to reach her fans or to shape her brand.īeyoncé wasn't the first major musical artist to sidestep the promotion machine. Beyoncé wound up selling more than 617,000 copies in its first three days alone, easily soaring to No. ![]() Here was one of the biggest performing stars of the 21st century bluntly announcing her complete control of her art and the method of its distribution. The release of this album, her fifth solo project following an already successful stint leading Destiny's Child, was a huge statement for Beyoncé the artist and Beyoncé the businesswoman.
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